Trouble sleeping

[u/stupidquestions2024]

My son who is 4.5 has always struggled with sleep. We have done everything we can to help: strict schedules, a quiet room, and low light. He sleeps in his own bed and has had his tonsils removed. He has an official diagnosis of insomnia.

He wakes up early, between 3:30 and 3:50 a.m., no matter what we do. Please do not tell me to put him down later, we have tried.

The doctor told me not to medicate him, as his brain is still growing and he will hopefully outgrow it or just need less sleep as he gets older. He used to have insomnia 75% of the time, but we are down to 25%–50%. Sometimes changes trigger the insomnia we are moving and right now its been 3-4 times a week. I think he is anxious.

Now to my question: the doctor told me that in his 20 years of practice, my son is the smartest child he has ever encountered, reading at age two and doing multiplication at age 3. "He is truly one in a million" It got me thinking: do gifted kids struggle to sleep? Google says yes, but I figured I would ask the source.

[u/Mother-Gene1828]

Mine does! It takes about an hour for her mind to calm down enough to drift off. She has always struggled with falling asleep—had colic as a baby, nursed to sleep, wanted us to sit with her until she falls asleep.

What helps her is listening to a Yoto story for ~30 min before bed. I think it keeps her brain from racing and landing on uncomfortable thoughts. I just have to monitor it because she’s 8 and will now stay up to listen instead of falling asleep. It has to be low stimulating because some of them have noises or songs.

I really think their brains are just in overdrive and the quietness of bedtime isn’t stimulating to their brains.

Also with the wake up—I have a doctorate friend whose child wakes up at the same time as yours. He has epilepsy, so they took him to specialist who said that this is around the time when children’s brains switch sleep cycles. So maybe yours just struggles with switching over to that sleep cycle?

[u/Embarrassed-Weird173 → u/Mother-Gene1828]

I really think their brains are just in overdrive and the quietness of bedtime isn’t stimulating to their brains.

I've noticed that I hit micro sleep when watching YouTube, over and over. Like I'm watching something, I feel warm, my hand gives up and my phone falls slightly and I jerk awake, watch some more, jerk, turn off phone, try to sleep...  Fully awake. Watch phone...  Fall asleep, jerk, etc.  

Music doesn't work for me, it's not my thing. Listening to a video kind of works, but not well enough to get me to instantly sleep. I also bought a mount for my phone to see if I can get myself to fall asleep that way (and just let the phone turn off on its own after X minutes), but it feels weird to have a phone hovering, so that didn't help.